Raimondo to sign bill to improve police community relations

By News Staff

news@abc6.com

Raimondo to sign bill to improve police community relations

Gov. Gina Raimondo is signing a bill aimed at improving the relationship between police departments and the communities they serve.

Departments will be required to continue collecting data on race at traffic stops and report back on ways they're addressing any racial disparities.           

The bill prohibits searching juveniles without reasonable suspicion or probable cause of criminal activity.

The Democratic governor plans to sign it Tuesday.                 

Democratic Rep. Joseph Almeida, a retired police officer, and Sen. Harold Metts started working on the bill before the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri.

But they say the public unrest over that incident and other police shootings shows it'll take a significant effort to establish trust between law enforcement and minority communities.

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